‘She put a bomb under your car, Spider. Lisa O’Hara. Tried to blow you to bits.’

‘Liam – is he OK? Katra?’

‘They’re OK, Spider. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to them.’ He jerked a thumb towards the assault course. ‘I’ve brought them here until we work out what you want to do.’

Shepherd felt relief wash over him. ‘A bomb?’

‘Nice little number, Semtex, with a detonator wired into the ignition system.’ The Major gave the envelope to Shepherd. Inside were several surveillance photographs showing a man in his forties approaching Shepherd’s car, lying under it, and then returning to a parked car, where a woman was in the driving seat. ‘The bombmaker’s name is Eamonn Foley, he’s back in Cork now. The woman’s the one I told you about. Lisa O’Hara. The bomb under your car is the twin of the one they put under my Jag.’

‘When was this, boss?’

‘Late last night. Two o’clock in the morning, to be precise.’

‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me when you saw me this morning?’

‘I didn’t know. I’d put four of our counter-terrorism guys watching your house. Two of them followed the car and the other two removed the device. I wasn’t informed until after you’d flown to London.’

‘You’ve had people watching my house?’

‘It had to be done, once I knew that O’Hara was interested in you.’

‘I never saw them.’

The Major grinned. ‘They’re professionals, Spider. There would have been something very wrong if they had stood out.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Now what?’

‘Now I know who the bombmaker is, I’ll take care of it.’

‘And the woman?’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’ He put his arm around Shepherd’s shoulder. ‘Come and say hi to Liam. He’s a demon on the overhead bars.’

Shepherd heard the click of a key being inserted into a lock and then the front door opened. He stayed where he was, sitting in the chair behind the door. There was no way that she would be able to see him until she was in the room and by then it would be too late for her to do anything. He doubted that she would be carrying a gun, and even if she was there would be no time for her to pull it out. He looked down at the Glock in his hand. The Major had given him the gun. It had come direct from the manufacturers and had only been fired on one occasion, during testing at the indoor range, and once Shepherd had done what he had to do it would be disassembled and destroyed.

He was wearing dark clothes and black leather gloves and was sitting in the dark. He had been in the room for six hours without moving.